Businessman in Mumbai, credit card used in NY store

MUMBAI: Hit by the major credit card fraud by an international syndicate, Mumbai businessmanTushar Sampat was lucky as the bank that issued his card proactively blocked half the fraudulent transactions on his card in the US on January 7.

The 53-year-old received three SMSs within a minute on January 8 alerting about transactions of $300 each at Macy's East in New York on his card, totalling Rs 51,765.39. Experts believe Sampat's card was cloned.

Without wasting time, Sampat called the bank to get the card blocked. "An officer told me that the bank had suspected that these transactions were fraudulent and had blocked them. He also told me that there were in all, six transactions at the same merchant and the first three were processed while the remaining three were declined. He took my request for blocking the card," Sampat said.

Sampat visited the bank's nearest branch and the police and submitted letters about the fraudulent transactions.

Sampat was disappointed when he called the bank later to check the progress in the case and learnt that customer care had not forwarded his complaint to the dispute settlement department. "They said I will receive temporary credit of the said amount within 7 days and permanent reversal 30 days later," Sampat said, adding that it hadn't happened till Tuesday.

Pointing out that the fraud has affected the credit card industry and not just his bank, the spokesperson said: "In all three complaints we have received till now, we have given temporary credit where we have received the settlement information from overseas merchants. We have also started giving the final credit reversal to the customers where we have completed the investigation."

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